2010 Cloud Innovation Leader Award: Platform Computing

By Nicole Hemsoth

November 9, 2010

For a more detailed description of how we chose our winners for our first annual HPC in the Cloud Editors’ Choice awards, please read this post, which provides some necessary background and links to the full list of winners and descriptions.

Choosing an all-purpose cloud innovation leader that spans the grid to cloud movement and also touches both scientific and large enterprise means selecting from a relatively short list, but Platform Computing does indeed fit the bill on both of these fronts.

The company has been a force since it was formed, but it’s only been one year that they’ve been able to extend some of their core benefits to the realm of cloud computing with the launch of Platform ISF. This software, which is widely used, allows users to build and manage their own private cloud infrastructure—both in term of managing the in-house and virtualized resources—while supporting a wide array of configurations.

Platform’s roots lie in making distributed systems act as one, thus eliminating a large amount of the complexity involved in cluster management. Its first customers were in industry and now, fourteen years later, Platform has a broad user base in scientific computing as well as in large-scale organizations.

Aside from its longevity and continued refinement of existing solutions for grids, clusters and now private clouds, Platform was chosen as an innovator due to the constant refinements it has been making to its core products.

We expect to see a number of new developments in the coming year from this company as well, particularly on the HPC and cloud fronts as Platform attempts to make HPC more accessible to a broader array of users.

Some of Platform’s users include CERN, Harvard Medical School, the Singapore National Grid, Citigroup, and a number of university systems.

This summer, we interviewed Platform’s co-founder and CEO, Songnian Zhou about the company’s roots in academia and how it has made the transition from a concept to a business that has remained profitable since its inception. For those interested, the full interview can be found in this June, 2010 article.

In this photo, HPC in the Cloud publisher, Tom Tabor presents Platform’s Ken Hertzler and Randy Clark with the award.

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